ECMO helps 3-year-old survive rare infection

INDIANAPOLIS – When the Bayles family brought their 3-year-old daughter, Mila, to Riley Hospital for Children in early January, they never imagined she might not walk back out.

What they thought was just a bruise on her arm turned out to be something much more serious.

“By January 2, her left arm was probably twice the size of her right arm,” her father, Mark Bayles, said.

Doctors diagnosed Mila with Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). The Mayo Clinic describes it as an infection caused by a type of staph bacteria that’s become resistant to many of the antibiotics used to treat ordinary staph infections.

“Mila had an overwhelming infection in her body that started in her arm, very rare for us to see an infection that starts in somebody’s arm, and then causes an infection in their whole body,” said Dr. Brian Gray, the ECMO surgical director at Riley. “It caused lots of tiny little infections all throughout her lungs and those infections made her lungs fail.”

Her health declined quickly and her team of doctors at Riley decided her best chance at survival was to be put on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO).

“It’s our highest level of support for our sickest patients here,” said Dr. Matthew Friedman, the ECMO medical director at Riley. “It involves taking the blood out of the patient, giving it oxygen, taking away carbon dioxide, the waste gas, and then pumping it back into the patient.”

It’s a form of life support that comes with complications that include bleeding, clotting, stroke or even death.

“Every single patient we put on ECMO is at high risk for dying before they go on ECMO, and not all of them survive even with ECMO,” Dr. Friedman said.

Even with the risks, Mila’s family knew it would give their daughter her best chance at survival.

“It was probably in that moment where I thought this is it, this is what’s going to work,” Bayles said.

Mila spent 48 days in the pediatric intensive care unit, 21 of those days on ECMO. Then, on Feb. 28, she walked out of Riley.

“When she came off ECMO support, she was out of the ICU faster than anybody I’ve ever seen. She spent a really short amount of time in rehab, just getting ready to go back home, and was out of the hospital faster than I could have expected it,” Dr. Gray said.

Despite how Mila started 2025, her doctors say she’s now completely healthy. Her family credits the ECMO team with the now 4-year-old’s recovery.

“If we were at another hospital, I don’t know if we’d be sitting here right now,” Bayles said.

Since 1987, more than 1,300 patients have been supported by ECMO at Riley.

The program has once again earned the Extracorporeal Life Support Organization’s Platinum Award of Excellence, recognizing the world’s top ECMO programs.

Riley is among fewer than 50 institutions worldwide to hold that distinction.